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A little late to get back to this thread but I am absolutely astounded to see you felt the need to mention that you were apparently "blanked" by Python's steerer. It is oft said that none of us know what is happening in the mind and life of another boater and so we should not take any reaction personally. For your information the steerer that was on Python when she passed you is quite new and not yet completely comfortable with how the boat might react in shallow water when passing other boats so I suspect he was concentrating VERY hard on making sure he did not run aground which would have made the bow swing directly into your path. I will apologise on his behalf becauseI know him to be a really friendly chap and he would hate to have given the wrong impression. I find your comment quite odd though because within a few minutes of passing Python you also passed us and my enthusiastic smile as I recognised your boat was met with a head turned away and a blank stare. I realised that Jeff has not met us so put it down to unfamiliarity but it was you who was steering when we passed you earlier on in the summer and we got the same reaction from you then. When we have passed each other on our previous boat you have been all smiles so I suspect that you do have an axe to grind with historic boat owners because we are the same people - it is just the boat that has changed! I didn't feel the need to pass comment about it on the forum though. Perhaps it is just the hard working volunteers that deserve being moaned at for not smiling? I am not aware of our team being responsible for any atrocious steering. I was so proud of Jenny who only came and joined us last autumn with no desire to do more than help with vegetation cutting and has maybe steered Python no more than a handful of times. She took her out on parade and coped admirably. There were three different team members steered Python on parade including myself. It's amazing to think that because an inexperienced crew member was concentrating hard on trying to make sure he got things right a comment is made about him being unfriendly and yet nobody felt drawn to post about all the effort (and personal expense) that went in to create the Python into the spectacle that was ONLY boat to takepart in the illuminated boat parade. Smoke breathing snake and laser displays were greeted with a round of applause by the people along the towpath but our team juts gets a mention because a crew member didn't smile - frankly it makes me want to weep.

Oh do get over yourself, this is clearly borrux! Lots of non-historic members here are reading this thread I bet. Anyone reading this thread who is NOT a historic owner can indicate their presence by greenying this post, should they feel so inclined....

A good start. Now, turn your central heating up to 40 degrees to simulate summer. Drink a bottle of vodka to simulate the rocking motion. Get someone to periodically slam on your front door to simulate being hit. Do all this whilst wearing a pair of wellies to simulate the inevitable plumbing leak. Now, turn the heating off and open the fridge door. When the temp in the hallway hits - 10, this indicates your fire has gone out in the middle of the night. Now, quick, turn all the lights out.... your batteries are flat, or someone has unplugged your shorepower.Blunder around blindly in your engine room (mind the lawnmower) randomly flicking switches in the hope that one of them will put the lights back on. Now open your letterbox, and start a portable generator just outside your front door. You score more points for this if you can do it after 8pm, just as your neighbours get home. For improved realism, place a knackered old lawnmower at one end of your hallway and an old tin bath at the other, and a plastic bucket somewhere near the middle. Be sure to have your hallway lifted every few years to have ineffective paint applied at great expense. Happy boating.....

Ok where are we with the Norman, as i have a spare hour or so from bloody block paving, the house that is not the boat, and totally knackered i will give a late update. I say late as we have been busy cruising Khashoggi and getting the Norman to its home mooring as you will see.We ended up at Wigan Pier where i had decided on going the rest of the way by road transport. This was due to a vibration from the prop/drive when the revs get up to maybe 1500rpm, so not good to do the Ribble Link. Dont want to damage it more than it is.I called around local Hiab companies to see who will take the job on, After calling around a good few they were coming back at between £450-£500 for the 30 mile trip. Average i reckon from the last move si have done but then found a place that does it by the hour.....ooooeeeerrr, not one of them places So i worked it on 4hr job and at £55ph its not bad at all.I have all details to the woman on the phone and all good to go.Well the day began with us being up at 5am as i used the works van to get my cradles to the boat the day before so i had to drop the van off Tuesday before 6am as i have the week off work.Oh well no biggie as we then set off to the Norman to get it ready for the lift. Thing is we hadnt been given an Am or PM time for the lift. We Had a half hour cruise to the lift spot, so dinghy again to get the boat over to the towpath side, move the car to lift spot then walk back to cruise the boat up.Well all going well and on time but for me loosing the Anti vandal vandal key for the locks, but as lucky and unlucky as i am i found that i had left my socket set on the boat and in my tool bag had a spare screw bit adaptor. I knocked that into the 10mm head end and the 1/4 drive socket fits the the Anti vandal key So happy days we set off, two locks and got there about 8am to the lift site, only to find the crane driver wont be there until 12am, oh well off to Mc D`s He arrived dead on 12m and when i started to chat to him he didnt have a clue hoe to lift a boat as never done one before Some folk would of thought WTF, but nah crack on and he asked me how to go about it, so i did all the lifting but for manouvering the crane. I should of got discount lol.Video of the lift https://youtu.be/9dsk9LKuric image: https://i.postimg.cc/3rqXsCLV/20190827-130817.jpg image: https://i.postimg.cc/N0Qm6NM9/20190827-130754.jpg Intake clogged up image: https://i.postimg.cc/JhvPYYQP/INTAKE-2.jpg Hull, not bad to see the state of the rest of the boat. image: https://i.postimg.cc/FHNVpFCH/20190827-132135.jpg image: https://i.postimg.cc/VNH9zqfJ/20190827-132122.jpg image: https://i.postimg.cc/NFZRRB9B/20190827-130500.jpg Now the thing that was giving it the wobble. It took some getting out, infact i had to cut it as short as possible. I have collected all sorts in the past in the prop but never a large inner tube image: https://i.postimg.cc/7ZskhDxh/rudder-prop.jpg Think i will make a new rudder like i did with Khashoggi image: https://i.postimg.cc/VkqXbyYP/20190827-130507.jpg And lifted back in at Garstang Marinahttps://youtu.be/NLVC1TMCHgg As said, a half hour cruise home just a few moorings up from Khashoggi image: https://i.postimg.cc/5Nd2ZXVb/20190827-170626.jpg image: https://i.postimg.cc/9fnW1Mb3/20190827-160745.jpg image: https://i.postimg.cc/Hk3Wc37k/20190827-160815.jpg Plan is now to get it water tight from top down, being replace all windows and rear cabin door to be made, either wood or GRP not decided yet on that. Then the cockpit roof to be made wit canvas sides. And go from there.

I reckon it was more hearsay than rumour.

You ruined my weekend by withdrawing the offer of donating them! Absolutely runied I tell ya! I was absolutely cock-a-hoop when I counted up the takings and realised that thanks to the generosity of the people who either donated high quality tat or parted with good money for high quality tat we had managed to raise a magnificent sum of £718.55. If you had let me sell the twins I might have managed to top £720

Your first point has nothing to do with Python or her crew. You did not see the boat there and so cannot comment on how it was handled. If your point was not personal why make it personal by naming a specific boat unless you really do want to ensure that someone day is spoiled because they failed to smile at you? Some of our volunteers are very sensitive and we work hard at boosting their confidence. A comment like that could be all it took to put someone off volunteering in future. Have a think about that next time you find your paintwork perilously close to going through overhanging vegetation because that is what these volunteers do when they are not out raising money and the profile of the canal trust at events like Alvecote. Thankfully I know the steerer well enough to know he will probably have a good laugh about it over a beer tonight but others might take it differently I have not read all the other comments and whatever the route the discussion took I logged in to read that you were making a point about Python crew being miserable. On your second point it is you who is misunderstanding the point I am making.: You chose to single out the steerer of Python as somehow creating a bad image for historic boaters. The chap has never met you and yet you have decided he is miserable and unfriendly. If you choose to hold that opinion then nothing I type will change it. My point is that we have passed you twice this year and on both occasions we were blanked. Whether you recognised us or not makes no difference, the fact is that on two occasions a steerer on your boat has completely blanked the crew of a historic boat. Yes we recognised your boat, it is very distinctive and so is ours now. Our previous boat was very unremarkable and very similar to thousands of other semi-trad leisure boats out on the system. When we have passed you on that boat (at least twice from memory) we were greeted with a smile. Whether you had any clue about who it was you were smiling at we will never know but when we had a clone leisure boat we got a cheerful greeting. Now we have a historic boat we get blanked. You chose to make a point about being blanked by a specific boat on a specific occasion and yet crew on your boat have blanked us on two occasions without me feeling the necessity to name and shame on a public forum or suggest that all Hudson owners are miserable The name of our boat was updated on the forum on the day we picked up the boat. There has been much discussion about our acquisition of said boat on this forum but of course you have no interest in historic boats and so it is possibly beneath you to have delved into those posts in which case you wouldn't have a clue it was us on the boat. That really isn't a problem at all, at least it shouldn't be but if you choose to try and make a big public thing of being hurt by not getting a friendly smile from the Python team when you yourself don't bother making a cheery greeting to random owners of historic boats then you can expect it to come back and bite you on your bum. I sincerely hope that next time you happen to meet us. The Python team or for that matter, the owner of any other historic boat out on the cut you will get an appropriate greeting and it might save your fingers from all the typing

Re-reading the OP I think the author might be better off posting his question on TVworld Discussion Forum. ?

I've had a 25 foot long 6 foot 10 inch beam GRP cruiser for over 10 years, a Wavey Rider Elite - not many around. Here is a bit about it that may prompt some things to think about. We use it for leisure only, up to a couple of weeks spring to autumn. I do jobs in the winter sometimes and it can be cold unless the heating is on. The hull was sound, however it's been rewired, re-plumbed and had a new gas system. Despite having a boat safety certificate, the gas system had lots of un-necessary straight connections and they had been applied with red jointing compound. The wiring was a rat's nest of bell-wire. The simple water pump was powered through a switch that had to be held on to get cold water, i.e. not a pressurised system. Engine is a 10 HP Honda 4 stroke outboard that has can produce 10 Amps DC at nominal 12V for battery charging. It takes 4 hours daily running the keep the batteries charged when we are out cruising . (2 leisure, 1 engine start). I don't run the engine for charging alone if we are moored up and on-board for days. I usually use a Honda suitcase generator in that case for an hour or so a day. The fridge is the biggest drain on the batteries. Petrol is a bit of a pest however I use the internet to find petrol stations. I have a collapsible sack barrow. Spare petrol is stored in the outboard "compartment" so any petrol vapour can drain overboard. It's a no-no to store it where vapours could end up in the bilge, for example, and potentially ignite. Heating is a propex, room sealed. It's quite noisy however doesn't get left on at night when we are in bed as the gas is turned off at night. I'm in the process of installing Celotex thermal insulation as part of a running re-fit so the propex doesn't have to run as much. I'm not sure how many cruisers are insulated however it's worth asking the question for any boats you consider. Hot and cold water. A Shurflo pump and accumulator feed a cold tap and a Morco instantaneous water heater that in turn feeds a hot tap and a shower. Refrigeration is a 12 Volt Shoreline coolbox which has a conventional fridge compressor, so not absorption or peltier technologies; they don't seem to be available any more, although there seem to be competitive offerings. I have had a couple of rainwater water leaks where seals on holes in the roof for rails had failed. Easy to fix, once you find the source. Trouble is, the water can appear some distance from where it gained entry. I replaced the sliding window fabric runners with flocked rubber as the woven tape runners at the bottom had rotted. But it's a bit thick so the windows take some moving. I have something else to try. Handling in wind can be interesting however I wouldn't let that put you off. Just stay moored if it's bad. Hope this helps.

Apparently this is not Passing comment? You mention a boat by name stating the steerer did not leave a good impression No of course you can't vouch for what Jeff did or didn't do, because you were inside the boat. Just as I can't vouch for what the steerer on Python did or didn't do. I can see it has touched a nerve to think that maybe I felt alientated a little by the fact that my friendly approach was ignored? Well sh*t happens and I didn't lose any sleep over it and certainly didn't feel any need to identify the boat that had blanked me on a public forum. It seems because I have suggested that you might be guilty of some double standards we now need an inquest. Really???? Well, we passed the other day somewhere around Bears Hay from memory but it may have been a little earlier or a little later, we were travelling with Python, they got behind us when our inexperienced steerer moved across a little too far for an oncoming boat and ended up aground, it was a steep learning curve for him that day and so hence the fact I have a good idea of how he may have been focusing so hard on getting it right when you passed. I have spoken to him just now and he does not recall your boat but then why would he? We have passed a LOT of boats since Alvecote. You would have passed us a few minutes before passing Python so you will be as well placed as me to remember where it was as you are very obviously still hurt at being alientated by the steerer of a historic boat. I took the helm at some point around there and I am struggling to remember whether I was steering with Dave standing next to me or vice versa, I recognised your boat and said to Dave oh look it is Telemachus again and we both smiled and I know I waved and then felt foolish because I realised it was not you steering and so the poor chap probably thought I was a bit odd being so friendly when he didn't have a clue who I was. With regard to the earlier meeting I can possibly pin it down with a bit of detective work but I will say it was either on the Bridgewater or The L&L - possibly around Leigh or Pennington Flash way. It is interesting that because we have only met a couple of times and you are not great at remembering female faces that would be a good reason not to have acknowledged us and yet Python's steerer has never met you before in his life and yet you feel alienated because he did not respond to your greeting. How does that work then?

So.... Just in case anyone is interested. Batteries have finally come back from being tested and they were faulty. New set on and everything is rosy. Miles of driving and removing/refitting alternator etc. But pleased to get to the bottom of it. Thanks for all the help and advice.

You have just described about 80% of the people that drag boats around on ropes on canals. Most of them also do it while being yelled at by a 6 foot 16 stone bloke stood on the back of the boat, who is usually giving them unhelpful or plain wrong orders!

Thanks for the good bits of advice, as usual the replies did stray slightly off topic! I had a great trip down the Severn from Stourport, no issues with the locks, flow or state of the river. The week I spent on the Gloucester & Sharpness was one of the best trips on my boat. Coming back up the Severn was a bit different as the flow and wind were quite strong, I struggled along at 1.5 mph until I picked up a very useful spring tide helping me up towards Tewkesbury. The lock and bridge keepers on the Severn and the G&S were all brilliant and very helpful. I would strongly recommend a hand held VHF for anyone contemplating this trip. I bought a 2nd hand ICOM and it was worth it's weight in gold. Yes, you can use a mobile phone but I found the hand held VHF very useful for keeping in touch with the lock and bridge keepers, also good for hearing what other boat traffic is around. The Avon locks were a faff on my own but all in all, an excellent trip. The biscuits and John 6767 get the prize for the most sensible bits of advice.......thanks

Once it has soaked in / surplus wiped off it is not 'sticky'.

Don’t use raw linseed oil, it takes forever to dry. Boiled linseed oil (it’s not actually boiled these days, it just has some dryers added) is far more practical.

Well done sir!. That is it!. Blimey I've been trying to find out about this television programme for years and years after watching the first episode only back in 1969 50 years ago!!. Thank you again I am going to try and obtain a copy of it and watch the rest of the programme and see how it finishes (50 years on!!).

Well, I am working on it. I am not yet 50, so hope to be up to level 3 in the not too distant future.

Shut up!

Too reasonable for a true grumpy

When I rode a motorbike, I would nod to other bikers. When I sailed my dinghy, I would wave to other dinghy sailers. When I rode my mountain bike I would smile at other mountain bikers. When out walking, I would greet other walkers with a cheerie hello. When I steered my narrowboat I would give a big smile and wave. Now, I am old a grumpy, I just ignore the whole bloody lot!

I am deciding most of them are just on the forums, to busy on here to be on the cut.

Hi PD1964, you beat me to it. We were there at about 1030 and took the attached pictures. The image Ray (Heartland) posted is a bit deceptive because it flattens out the two curves in the line of houses/cottages. I spent from 1973 to 1979 driving coaches regularly in that area and am still familiar with that area and what was the old Doncaster Road bridge. The original image is from 1974/75 and the erection of a pumping station, a new bridge, and 45 years of tree planting and growth make a 'before and after' feature impossible. My first picture shows Pastures Road from its junction with Doncaster Road, at the bottom of the old bridge with the tyre depot building as previously mentioned at the foot of the old bridge. My second image from the south bank is similar to one of yours. You can see the vehicles parked on the old bridge approach and a bit of parapet wall below the trees. Ray - I am now 100% certain it is Pastures Road Mexborough and PD1964 agrees.

Perhaps it's time for someone in the know to check out your electrics.

You may find this web site useful when looking for a surveyor. http://www.canaljunction.com/boat/surveyors.htm Howard

He said Bare Chest, what did you think he said

Oh yes there is! Its the one you didn't ask. Any question you ask isn't silly.

You're clearly new to the forum: they all end up like this.

I wouldn’t, you obviously come from a sailing back ground, your average person on the canal knows very little about these Regs and manage safely and without causing danger.

Just as well you stayed away, as you would have been disappointed. I'm pretty certain not one hanky or neckerchief of any description was on display around anybody's necks, not even anybody's dog's neck. 'Tis true that I think the steam boat crews might have allowed themselves boiler suits - they were after all dealing with, (errm), boilers, but I guess even that would be considered a bit posy by you. If I don't want to sit in a mass of congestion, I will generally try and avoid going through (say) Hillmorton or the Middlewich branch on a peak sunny summer Saturday. There aren't many of these historic boat events overall, and it is really not hard to find out when and where they are and avoid coming through at parade time.

Isn't that what kids do at xmas

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough It isn't fit for humans now, There isn't grass to graze a cow Swarm over, Death! Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens Those air-conditioned, bright canteens, Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans Tinned minds, tinned breath. Mess up the mess they call a town - A house for ninety-seven down And once a week for half-a-crown For twenty years, And get that man with double chin Who'll always cheat and always win, Who washes his repulsive skin In women's tears, And smash his desk of polished oak And smash his hands so used to stroke And stop his boring dirty joke And make him yell. But spare the bald young clerks who add The profits of the stinking cad; It's not their fault that they are mad, They've tasted Hell. It's not their fault they do not know The birdsong from the radio, It's not their fault they often go To Maidenhead And talk of sports and makes of cars In various bogus Tudor bars And daren't look up and see the stars But belch instead. In labour-saving homes, with care Their wives frizz out peroxide hair And dry it in synthetic air And paint their nails. Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough To get it ready for the plough. The cabbages are coming now; The earth exhales.